Check Point: An Enterprise Security Expert :By - Bhaskar Bakthavatsalu Country Sales Manager, Check Point Software Technologies Ltd., India & SAARC

As security is becoming concern for all the networked products, it is very difficult to keep security isolated from storage or networking solutions. In fact, these three industries have taken it seriously as to how they can integrate their products before the solution goes to the customers. Therefore, one can see all the leaders in either network or storage space have taken the consolidation route to offer security as part of their core solutions and the examples are many. To cite a few examples, EMC acquired RSA Security; Cisco acquired IronPort; 3Com took over TippingPoint; and, similarly, Veritas merged with Symantec.

There are very few security vendors who have not yielded to the pressure of consolidation and remained nonchalant. Check Point is one such company which has preferred aligning with all the security and storage vendors externally than internally by getting merged with the company. The advantage of Check Point is that the company develops technology from grounds up, which gels with the storage and networking solutions easily. For this, the company focusses heavily on R&D and support mechanism. Not only this, Check Point also invests in empowering channel partners and marketing activities. 

Check Point provides a broad range of security products and services that are open and flexible to fit all types of customer environments, whether that is a small business or a large Fortune 100 company. Check Point products are proven to provide the strongest level of security, across multiple layers of an organization’s information network: Network security to protect the network infrastructure; data security for ensuring data privacy; superior security management delivering unified policy management, monitoring and analysis. And all these products are backed with world-class technical resources, research and response to help our customers to stay ahead of threats. All these solutions are based on the Check Point Unified Security Architecture, which provides consistent and efficient control of the security infrastructure to improve security, reduce complexity and lower total cost of ownership (TCO).

Check Point is synonymous with technical innovation. It started with Stateful Inspection, which was invented and patented by Check Point and is now the foundation for much of today’s network security technology. And we have continued to innovate in the key technology areas, such as malicious code protection, security acceleration and Cooperative Enforcement. We currently hold five United States patents with more than 25 US patents pending, and additional patent applications pending worldwide. Over one-third of Check Point employees worldwide are engaged in R&D. In 2006 alone, we spent $62 million on R&D. Strong focus on R&D has resulted in Check Point leading the market through its pure dedication to product innovation and seamless product integration.

Check Point support programmes ensure that our customers have immediate access to critical resources when they need them. It has various layers of service support mechanism. That is to say, Direct Enterprise Support under Check Point provides world-class support for all the products with one comprehensive service contract. Our comprehensive support programme offers full range of features and benefits depending on the service level that customers choose. It ranges from just hot fixes and major upgrades to 24/7 support.

Check Point Collaborative Enterprise Support combines first-line support from your local Certified Collaborative Support Provider (CCSP) with full back-end support from Check Point. This support programme was launched last year as we realized there was a need for local expert who could understand customers’ specific needs and provide onsite support, if needed. They are backed by Check Point’s worldwide support teams and in-depth resources 24 hours a day. We also provide direct access to our large, online, self-service knowledge base to quickly and easily answer your questions and reduce support time and costs.

As already said, Check Point is also focussed much on the building exercise. Therefore, the company never likes to miss any opportunity of talking to the users. Bhaskar says,

“Check Point UTM-1 appliances were launched in India quite recently. We did a 5-city partner training programme which covered Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai and Kolkata. We have also participated in all the leading security conferences in the country.”

Check Point’s product range includes hardware and software solutions. Though the company is known for its Firewall/VPN, it also offers UTM, Intrusion Detection and Prevention, Endpoint Security and Data Security.

Check Point is a 100-per cent partner focussed company. Bhaskar says, “In India, we operate through three distributors, including Inflow Technologies, Ingram Micro and Select Technologies, three gold partners, i.e. HCL Comnet, Ramco and Wipro, and six silver partners, i.e. Datacraft, N&N Systems, Ontrack Solutions, Sify, Softcell and Taarak.”

Besides, the company works with 50 designated bronze partners. Basically, the distributors are responsible for billings and partner engagements. The company in India is headquartered out of Bangalore and has its presence in Delhi and Mumbai.

Finally…

Check Point has also introduced IPS-1 (technology acquired from NFR Security) and dedicated to delivering accurate, real-time attack mitigation, unmatched management, granular forensic analysis and flexible deployment enabling enterprises to protect against worms, automated malware and other hybrid threats, both known and unknown. In 2007, Check Point is concentrating on UTM appliances and data security range of products. Data Security products are the new range of solutions that the company has today post its acquisition of Pointsec.